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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Law & Legal |
Employer deducting money from check? |
I no longer work for the company that I was with for over 6 years. The manager and supervisory called a mandatory employee meeting and took each employee (individually) into the office. Well the meeting was to tell us that for the past 2 years they have been mistakingly paying us for holidays and such that they should not have been doing, so in order to get their money back they were going to take the money out of each employee's check. They took a whopping $386 out of my one check. If this was a mistake on their part, how can they take money out of my check? I refused to sign anything when in the office. Well now that I'm gone they sent me a letter saying I still owed $115. I sent a letter back saying "I refuse to pay for your mistake, you took enough." Was I wrong? If the company lists those days in the employee handbook as paid holidays, right or wrong, and they paid you for them, it sounds like they were not able to take the money out of your check. The handbook is a legal document. IF you have a copy, take that with you, plus the check stub where they took out the $386, when you go to speak to a labor law attorney. You can find one on www.findlaw.com, or www.abanet.org. Please see an attorney that specializes in labor laws - this is your best source for information regarding this - you should be able to get a 30 minute free consultation - you might have to look a bit for one that offers free consultations - but they are out there - go to legalmatch.com they can post your issue and then attorneys who specialize in that area will respond to you - I have used this service and it does work. Nope not wrong. Just a shame that you won't have a good reference for 6 years of work. Don't pay them and call your state's labor department. File a complaint as an employer cannot withdraw anything from your check that you do not authorize. If your state won't help then call the federal department of labor. Then file a claim in small claims court for the money they stole from you. Rotten employers make us all look bad 20+ years payroll/management experience Yes. If you were paid in error, then you have a moral and ethical obligation to give back what didn't belong to you. This assumes that the Company policy clearly stated that holidays were unpaid. Having said that, the Company is highly unlikely to take you to court for $115. They will simply tag your personnel file as 'do not rehire'. If they reveal this dispute to a future employer doing a background check on you, you can probably then sue them into the stone age. PS: If the Company gets stupid and tries to pursue you for the balance. Send them a certified return receipt letter informing them that they illegally garnished your pay for a debt. That will settle it. Technically, if you refused to agree with a voluntary payroll deduction, then the Company should have gone to court and obtained a Garnishment order. Since they did not, you are both wrong, with your employer being more wrong than you. So relax, you've got them, they don't have you. PPS: with that additional info, your employer is on VERY shaky ground. You have nothing to worry about. PPPS: One more point for you to watch out for. Many employers will take the money you owe them out of your Federal Income Tax withheld after you leave. It's illegal, but they do it anyway. So, keep your last paystub from the Company. If your W2 at the end of the year shows you are mysteriously missing $115 from FIT withholding, then you know what happened. Now you can make their lives truly miserable. Your state has an agency that covers all labor and wage laws. You should contact them and file a complaint. It might take a while, but you will get your money back. There is no way they can do what they did. I would turn them in to the Internal Revenue Service, I don't think they can not pay for holidays, providing that you worked the day before and the day after the holiday. |
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